


Stream of Conscious from a Freak

by TiffanyF



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, darkish fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-06
Updated: 2013-02-06
Packaged: 2017-11-28 08:56:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/672585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TiffanyF/pseuds/TiffanyF
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I had a really super rough night one night, blaming it all on the fibro. Hips should not be allowed to hurt that much, and do not get my going on my shoulder and neck. I was up to 0500 FCOL. That's just wrong. So I wrote this. It's an experiment. The middle text is from a notebook Sherlock keeps by his bedside and writes in when he feels puzzled or needs to express himself a little. There's no breaks at all, though you can probably work out a few of them, but who knows how his mind works. Ten pages in an hour and 45 minutes hand-written. Yeah, you can add writer's cramp onto the pains of the night by the time I was done.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stream of Conscious from a Freak

Lestrade was at his desk staring out the window when his phone beeped to let him know he had a text message. With a sigh, he picked it up to find out what Sherlock wanted with him now.

*Baker Street. Black book in bedside table. Destroy completely. Do not read. Do not fail me. SH*

That made absolutely no sense. Why couldn’t Sherlock destroy his own book? Why did he need Lestrade to do it for him?

“Sir?”

“Donovan?”

“The Freak is dead.”

Lestrade dropped his phone. “What?” he demanded, feeling his heart skip. He didn’t think that was actually possible. Skips only happened in books, didn’t they? How could his heart really skip a beat when he heard that Sherlock was dead.

“He jumped off of Bart’s,” Donovan said. She looked happy.

Lestrade wanted to punch her. He grabbed his phone and left, ignoring her calls. He wanted to get to the book before John did. Sherlock wouldn’t have sent him the text if it wasn’t important.  
**********

Mrs. Hudson let him into Baker Street and Lestrade didn’t even look around. He went right back to the bedroom, a room he’d only been in once when Sherlock was sick and needed something to eat. Lestrade sat down on the bed and pulled open the drawer in the cabinet next to the bed. There was a black notebook sitting there, pen next to it, and Lestrade was struck by how innocent it looked. He didn’t understand why Sherlock would want it destroyed. He bit his lip in indecision and then opened it. Maybe the book would explain why Sherlock killed himself. Lestrade never heard the camera in the corner zoom in over his shoulder, focusing in on the pages. It wasn’t easy to read Sherlock’s handwriting, but Lestrade had practice, even if it looked like the text was scribbled out almost as if Sherlock couldn’t hold the words back and struggled to put them on paper. He took a deep breath and started reading.

 

**  
Freak. I’m not a freak. Am I a freak? Can a single word completely define a human being? Or a human’s nature? What is a freak? A person with no redeeming societal value. One who must be hidden away, only to be brought out when there is some need. A freak is feared, hated, loathed. What a nice round word loathed is. It embodies so much feeling into a single word. Loathed. Freak. One is soft and one is sharp. Both have applied to me at various times. My father loathed the very sight of me. Only one person has ever not called me a freak. It’s normally spat at me in anger, as if I contaminate the very air by existing. How old was I the first time someone called me a freak? Young, I must have been young, too young to properly remember it. Perhaps I deleted it. Daily exposure should dull the pain, take away a little of the now familiar spark of pain I feel in association with the word. No physical pain, not since Mycroft learned what the servants were doing to me, but residual just the same. Anderson is a spitter of the word, like he cannot get it out of his mouth fast enough. Maybe speaking quickly gives him a sense that he’s defeated me some how? Why does no one take the time to try and understand me? Isn’t that what normal people do? Try and understand each other? If they label someone a freak, does that mean the newly named freak is no longer human? Am I not human? Am I a monster? Donovan delights in warning people away from me. Is being a freak contagious? Are they all afraid they’ll catch something from me? Is that why no one will be around me for long periods of time? No one knows what it’s like inside my head. The constant input from everything. Processing data aside, my mind cannot stand to be idle. It destroys itself. Mycroft used to understand. His mind is the same. He handles it by working. So many things to manage to keep the government running. Once he wanted me to come work for him. It’s not interesting enough to hold my attention. I want to understand. I can sharpen my mind to a fine point, but I can’t risk it now. Lestrade would cut off my access to cases, and working with him helps the boredom that sets in so easily. Does Lestrade think I’m a freak? He’s never called me freak to my face, even though he has used variations of the word when talking to me. Is it possible he thinks I’m a freak and is only just using me as a tool? He doesn’t like or approve of my methods or my techniques, so why does he keep working with me? Does he know his wife is cheating on him? She’s been seeing the PE teacher from school for the past six months. I should tell him, but the last time I mentioned anything about his family, he almost broke my nose and didn’t call me for a case for a month. Why are people so quick to be violent when they learn something unpleasant or they do not want to know? Homicides would drop a considerable percentage if people would only learn to control their tempters a little more. A puzzle with no solution. No one seems to realize that I do understand that people are not numbers. Not data. I can’t help that’s the way I see them. It’s how I see every single thing on the planet. Animals, plants, machines, people; they’re just puzzle pieces to figure out. To stand outside humanity and observe them. Humans really are mostly blind. By choice. They choose not to apply themselves, they scorn anyone or anything that is different. I am different. I observe everything. I see the secrets that people keep hidden from each other. There’s only Mycroft who I have trouble reading, and he’s like me. Outside and watching. He enjoys it more than I do. He makes an effort to fit in when he has to. Bows to the masses when he is really playing with them. I suppose I’m just more obvious about playing with people. They spend so much time dancing around feelings. The only thing I ever remember feeling is pain. Pain at my father’s hand when I couldn’t get out of his way fast enough; pain from the servants when they beat me and called me a freak. Pain hearing Mother tell her friends that her youngest was the freak of the family. Pain from assaults at school. Over time the pain numbs, but it never does fully go away. That’s another reason to send my mind away for a while. To rest from the pain of knowing I was born a freak, raised as one and shall always be one. I don’t understand what makes me a freak. I have no physical deformities. I am pleasing to look at, if the glances I get from both men and women are to be believed. I don’t let anyone get close to me. I don’t want them to see the freak under the skin. Would it hurt worse if I let someone close to me and let them find out what I truly am? I’m not even sure I know my true self. My own brother think I’m barely worth anything. The only person in the world I am sure has never verbally called me a freak and he can’t stand to spend more than five minutes in the same room as me. Maybe I am contagious. Maybe Mycroft worries that he’ll become more like me if he dares spend any time with me. I can always feel them watching me at crime scenes. I never show emotions. It’s not that I don’t understand emotions, it’s that I lock them away. The rock that almost blinded me when I was fourteen was the last time I showed any true emotion. I can fake well enough, though I am unsure if excitement is a true emotion. Why do humans feel the need to define everything so much? Everything in their existence is labeled so closely and in so much detail that they blind themselves to everything around them. They look at me and see a freak who gets excited about unusual crime. The excitement is what makes me a freak in their eyes. No one understands that it’s the puzzle I’m excited about, the possibility that there might be someone out there who is not locked tightly in a box created for them by society. I’ve even seen the traces of disgust in Lestrade’s eyes, and he’s the one who has spent the most time talking with me, trying to get me to be more normal. More human. He never lectures his team for what they call me, how they treat me. He sees the mask of indifference and lets them treat me as a freak. Why does Lestrade insist on me acting more human when he doesn’t insist on the same for his team? I already know that I cannot change. No one would believe it, but I did try, once. I was six and wanted to see the same approval that Mycroft received from our parents. I brought Mother flowers from the woods and did everything that was asked of me. If not for Mycroft, Father would have killed me. I was stuck in bed for two weeks while I healed, and leaned my lesson. A freak is always a freak no matter what mask he wears. I decided to throw away my masks and show the world who I really am. I had to get a flat-mate. Mycroft cut my allowance for some reason, maybe just because he can, I certainly had no warning of it happening. John hasn’t run away. I can tell he’s confused by me, but he is still in the flat. I was surprised at Lestrade’s actions. He bullied me. Is he a better actor than I thought? Is this the real Lestrade and then man I’ve been working with the mask? He said he knew I would find the case. Why did he have to bring his team in to dig through my belongings? He could have just come over and I would have given him everything. I don’t like people in my space. Lestrade knows I don’t like people in my personal space. He brought Anderson and Donovan with him. Why would he do that? He should have realized it would just give them more weapons to use against me. Like I gave to John. I trusted him and even he betrayed me. It was a small thing, but if he does this with such trivia, does that mean I can no longer trust him with important matters? I really cannot stand that blog he takes such pride in. Lestrade even reads it. He’s started taking small digs at me now. Why does no one understand? If a mind is cluttered then it is unhealthy. My mind works so fast that it needs to be kept clean and organized. Why should I care about trivia about the stars or who the PM is? Mycroft runs the government, it doesn’t matter who the face for the media is. Why does it bother me so much that John and Lestrade are making fun of me? I don’t even know how to tell them it bothers me. It puts me in mind of school and I find myself half expecting the blow that always came with each taunt. Neither of them have come halfway close to realizing this. John is too focused on women when he’s not working a case with me, and Lestrade has never noticed. I stood in front of my mirror the other night and stared at my face, wondering if it ever showed anything. Moriarty seemed to see something there, when we talked at the pool. The man is more dangerous than anyone realizes, and will be my destruction. I don’t know, yet, how, or even when, but he will ruin me. He’ll have help from others, but it will ultimately be him. Moriarty seems to believe I have a heart. I don’t. I haven’t ever, as far as I know. What does it mean to have a heart? I know it means more than the organ beating within my chest pumping blood through my body. He took John as the final test, and I failed. I would have won but for a single phone call. Why would he take John? I call the man my friend, but I don’t have friends. No one wants to be friends with a freak. They’ve all proven that. John has remained with me no matter what I do, even if he does leave the flat mad on average two nights a week. Does he think of me as a friend? He seemed to think I might care about the people Moriarty used as human bombs, but all I cared about was the puzzle. I knew I could solve them in time and get the police to each location. I felt stunned when the old woman died. She was different from normal people. She realized what would happen to her, and she still tried to help me get closer to Moriarty. Hers is a death I regret. I found a link to Moriarty and lost it again. Mycroft insisted I take a case to aid the crown and there was enough of a puzzle, along with a chance to prove him wrong, so I accepted it. But now Mycroft has started to mock me. Why does everyone mock me? Are they trying to make me feel less important than they are? Is it an attempt to put me back in the shadows with the other freaks? The man who once stood up for me against the masses of normal people has now joined with them against me. I am truly alone. There is no one who understands me. No one willing to look at me and see beyond the multiple masks I wear to shield myself from the words of the world. Freaks don’t have feelings. Freaks can be attacked however anyone feels like because they aren’t human beings. Freaks don’t feel anything. I wish I could figure out why it hurts so much more when one of the insults comes from Lestrade. He’s Mycroft’s puppet when it comes to watching me. Mycroft never does anything himself when he can delegate it to someone else. I have realized that I will never be free of Lestrade no matter where I go. I fell victim to fear and doubt. I was drugged and not in my right mind, but it shook me badly. John wouldn’t listen to what I was saying, just kept going on about logic and reason. I thought he wanted me to show real emotions, to be more like a real, normal human and when I did, when I needed him to listen to me, he wouldn’t. I know him well enough that I was able to drive him off for the night, made him mad enough at me that he left. He was still willing to help on the case, but didn’t really start talking to me until Lestrade showed up. I solved the case, but am no closer to the answers I’m searching for. My death draws near. No one seems to realize this but me. Lestrade is still getting in the painful digs and I still don’t understand why it bothers me so much. Maybe he does realize I’m going to die. Maybe Mycroft told him, and he wants to insult me as much as he can before I’m gone. I’m surprised Mycroft hasn’t called or shown at the flat. The death of the freak should be worthy of at least a phone call. He’ll never have to worry about me bringing shame to the family name again. That should make Mycroft happy. He’ll never have to worry about his freakish brother again. He can relax and run the government and not have to worry what I’m doing. It’ll be better for Lestrade too. He’ll have to find someone new to insult and poke fun at, but I’m sure freaks are easily replaceable. You just have to look in the shadows to see where they’re hiding. Maybe Lestrade’s new freak will be trained to do tricks, like he’s been trying to train me to do for years. I’ve frustrated him at every attempt. I was trained years before I met him. He should just go and talk to Mycroft. John has plenty of people around him, he’ll be fine no matter what. He’ll enjoy life without a freak in it. I know what Moriarty wants. I know what Mycroft told him. Death holds a certain appeal again. It will be quiet and no one will be there to call me a freak. I won’t be labeled. I won’t have to do anything I find distasteful. No one will insult me and expect me to believe that’s what friends do. I won’t have to feel the pain from Lestrade’s insults. I do wish I had time to puzzle out why it always hurts worse when it’s him, and why he’s started it more since John moved in. I’d like to know why Mycroft turned on me too. What is it that drives everyone away in the end? Even when I try, I get it wrong. Why bother trying? Why make an effort when it makes no difference. I suppose it is true, what Father told me. A freak is a no one. I’ll go to my death with my head held high because I am a Holmes. But, as with so much else in my life, it will be an act. I do not want to die. 

 

**  
Lestrade barely felt the book drop from his numb fingers. The words had burned into his brain and he knew he would never be able to forget them. He never realized he hurt Sherlock. The man’s mask was too good, and it was too late to undo the damage. He realized he would question his interactions with everyone for the rest of his life, always wondering if he was doing damage, even with no damage to show. He also knew that he would never be able to burn the book. He forced himself to pick it up and put it in his pocket. If he ever felt like he was slipping, he could read it again. A piece of Sherlock to hold onto forever.

On the other side of the camera that had read along with the DI, Mycroft dropped his face into his hands and wept for his baby brother. He had failed.


End file.
